Monday, May 2, 2016

Violated by Carolyn Arnold - Interview and Giveaway

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Carolyn Arnold will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Welcome to It's Raining Books. Why do you write in your genre? What draws you to it?

I write in the mystery genre and I also have a series that I started the end of last year in the action-adventure genre. The latter has been given a fresh take and is written with the mystery reader in mind. As for the police procedural genre, I love the suspense and intrigue. The logical progression and the investigation aspects fascinate me as I hope they do my readers.

What research is required?
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When it comes to my police procedurals, I pride myself on making these books as correct as possible. I want the procedures correct and to ensure this happens, I do online research as well as I have contacts who work, or who have previously worked, in law enforcement. They’ve been such a huge help. Due to taking due diligence, people from law enforcement have praised my work. It led me to adopting my brand as “Police Procedurals Respected by Law Enforcement.” Visitors to my website can read these on my testimonials page.

With the first book in my action adventure series, I become obsessed with getting as much information as I could on the Inca’s lost city of gold… And my, was that fascinating! But I thought I had to discover it myself to write about it. This probably comes from the logical side of my brain that writes police procedurals. But I quickly came to realize I was to simply have fun with writing the story while incorporating historical aspects and information about the legend.

Name one thing you learned from your hero/heroine.

Wow. Excellent question. I find that I learn so much from the killers in my books that I hadn’t really thought about my main characters. Brandon Fisher, however, can be quick to react and sometimes this gets him into trouble…. Especially with his boss. Also he had a relationship years ago with a woman who is now on his team with the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit. This makes for some complications as she loves him and he has strong feelings for her, as well, but he won’t fully admit to them. And given their careers, it’s not really feasible that they have a romantic relationship.

Do you have any odd or interesting writing quirks, habits or superstitions?

Not really... Unless you count watching the movie Romancing the Stone after finishing the first draft of a novel a quirky thing. ;)

Are you a plotter or pantser?

Panster all the way! Or as I like to say, I write organically. I simply go with the flow. It’s like I’m watching a movie play out before me and I’m just recording the story. Writing in this manner is probably another reason that I love writing investigative stories… I solve the murders along with my characters.

Look to your right – what’s sitting there?

A hardcover and paperback copy of Violated, an empty plate from breakfast (it was only two hours ago!), a planning calendar, and a stapler.

Anything new coming up from you? What?

Well, I just released Violated on April 28th, but I’m always working on something. Currently, a September release in my Detective Madison Knight series is going through the editing process, and I’ve started writing a novella for my McKinley Mystery series set to come out in October.

Do you have a question for our readers?

What is your favorite thing about the mystery genre?

Sometimes the past should stay there…

The murder is one of the most heinous Brandon Fisher has ever seen, but that’s not why it has his and his colleagues’ attention. The FBI’s interested because the prime suspect is one of their own, Paige Dawson.

But Paige didn’t go to Valencia, California to kill anyone. She had set out on “vacation”—her new lover in tow—only to confront the man who had raped her friend twenty-some years ago. While the hands of the law are tied, she wants him to face the fact that he destroyed a young woman’s life and know that, as an FBI agent, she’ll be watching his every move. But instead of accomplishing her goal, she wound up in the back of a police cruiser.

Now Paige must face off with a hard-nosed detective determined to stick a murder charge to a fed. But with the trained eyes of the FBI on the case, it’s becoming more and more obvious that the evidence lends itself to a serial killing, not an isolated incident. And as long as the local authorities are focused on Paige, the real murderer is still out there, possibly waiting to strike again…

Enjoy an excerpt:

Paige blinked the tears from her eyes. It couldn’t be. She wiped her wet eyes, her gaze not leaving the necklace in her hand. The chain was a common style, but the heart pendant and the letter N…

Still, it didn’t mean this one had been Natasha’s…

Paige swallowed. But she remembered when Natasha had realized she’d lost it. She had dropped on the end of the hotel bed as if all the weight of the world were piled on her shoulders. It was the morning after the rape.

Tears now fell freely down Paige’s cheeks. There was no doubt in her mind that the necklace she now held had been Natasha’s.

Paige cried as the past washed over her and continued to do so until rage replaced her sadness.

Somehow, she would make this son of a bitch pay for what he had done. She was past the point of keeping within the shades of the law and would circumvent legal means if that’s what it took to hold him responsible.

She clasped the necklace around her neck. Had Ferris kept it as some sort of sick notch in his bedpost? If so, that showed a psychology to him that confirmed he was a repeat offender. And if that was his mentality, prison wouldn’t have rehabilitated him, and that meant there were likely date-rape drugs here to prove it.

She stormed from the bedroom and toward the bathroom.

Beyond the point of caring anymore if she left her fingerprints behind, she emptied the contents of the medicine cabinet, and his toiletries now filled the sink.

Nothing.

She rushed back to his bedroom and tore it apart. The drugs were here somewhere. A man like Ferris wouldn’t stop raping…

Several minutes passed as she searched, and when she was finished, his bedroom looked like a tornado had struck. But still no pills.

Maybe she was being ridiculous, hoping to find something where there was nothing. And even if she found the drugs, what did she hope to accomplish? While possession of date-rape drugs was illegal, her means of getting them would make them inadmissible in any court. But she couldn’t stop. All she could see was her friend’s body in that casket—the way her face, even in death, showed her tortured existence.

She hurried downstairs to the kitchen. There was no way she was stopping now.

She searched each cupboard and drawer, pulling out items and rooting to the back. She had one place left to look, and as she opened it, she saw that it was a catchall drawer. Stuffed with anything and everything from a meat thermometer, to sandwich bags, to tin foil, to… She pulled out a sleeve of pills. She flipped them and read the stamp on the silver backing. Allergy pills.

She continued working through the contents of the drawer until she reached the last item. It was an Aleve bottle. That was an inconvenient place to keep a pain reliever… She opened it and looked inside. It was only the medication. She was still holding the bottle in her hand when she recalled the one on the counter. She exchanged one for the other, not about to give up. Just because the bottle was labeled one way… She twisted the lid.

Police sirens wailed somewhere nearby, and she paused. Her instinct told her to leave this alone and get out of his house immediately. But it was too late, the whooping sirens were on top of her now, and then the patio door slid open on the other side of the dining room. Two police officers entered the house, guns drawn.

“Santa Clarita Sheriff’s Department! Put your hands on your head!”

“What’s—” The strength drained from her legs, and her head spun. She was under arrest?

Oh God. That woman must have called the police.

“I said, put your hands on your head!” the same officer shouted.

Another officer went around behind her, stripped her of her gun, passed it off to the second officer, and proceeded to cuff her. “You have the right to remain silent—”

“This isn’t what it looks like.”

“It looks like you’re ransacking the house of a dead man.”

A dead man?

“I’m an FBI agent. I can explain—”

“You can do that down at the station.”

About the Author:

CAROLYN ARNOLD is the international best-selling and award-winning author of the Madison Knight, Brandon Fisher, and McKinley Mystery series. She is the only author with POLICE PROCEDURALS RESPECTED BY LAW ENFORCEMENT.™

Carolyn was born in a small town, but that doesn’t keep her from dreaming big. And on par with her large dreams is her overactive imagination that conjures up killers and cases to solve. She currently lives in a city near Toronto with her husband and beagle. She is also a member of Crime Writers of Canada.

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